"ASEAN should stand in the vanguard in facing the various existing challenges. Hence ASEAN should not let itself be a passive onlooker who can easily become a victim of problems confronting countries in other parts of the world," the president said at the 19th ASEAN Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Thursday.
The head of state said five points needed to be taken into account by ASEAN at present and in the future. The first point had to do with concrete step to strengthen the pillars of the ASEAN community in a balanced and mutual manner prior to 2015.
Efforts to develop the ASEAN community should not be hampered by anything and therefore those in power within the region must be involved in the efforts. ASEAN should become a people-oriented and people-driven community.
The second point, Yudhoyono said, was the need to strengthen economic growth within the region, as it was only through a better economic growth that the region would remain resilient toward global economic volatility.
In addition, resilience would enable ASEAN to find solutions to the financial and economic crises happening in the world at present. ASEAN would also be able to make a bigger contribution to the creation of strong global economic growth in addition to creating a more balanced global economy.
"I am very happy that ASEAN now also has a roadmap to safeguard the level of economic growth such as building connectivity among the states and regions. We should make the realization of the master plan on ASEAN connectivity run as expected," the head of state stressed.
The third point was that ASEAN should play a key role in managing the architecture of regional cooperation and do it in an efficient and effective manner.
To that end, ASEAN should be able to maintain centrality and leadership in its interaction with its dialogue partners and in its participation in inter-regional fora. Cooperation among ASEAN partners had been developed through the mechanism of ASEAN Plus One, ASEAN Defence Ministerial Meeting Plus and ASEAN Regional Forum as well as other mechanism.
In the meantime, in forming regional architecture through the frame of East Asian Summit, ASEAN needs to identify a joint principle which will combine the relations of the whole EAS participants. Through the principle, peaceful and friendly relations were no longer defined only in the context of Southeast Asia, but also the main players in the East Asian region.
"Our objective to establish the East Asian Summit is not only to prevent a rift, but more than that it also to improve stability and security within the Southeast and East Asian regions," he said.
In the context of the need to safeguard the stability and security in Southeast and East Asia region which has come up as the fourth point, ASEAN should be proactive to facilitate and get involved in settling various `residual issues` which have so far often been regarded as a factor hampering the acceleration of ASEAN cooperation.
Under the chairmanship of Indonesia, ASEAN has actually facilitated a peace dialogue on border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand. In the future, ASEAN should continue improving the capacity and ability to find solution to the conflict.
On another occasion during the ASEAN Summit, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said that ASEAN was able to build a comfort zone for many countries to hold dialogue on critical issues. Such an agreement on the guidelines on the implementation of the declaration on the conduct of the parties in the south China sea between ASEAN and RRT, thus reviving optimism in seeing the problem in the South China Sea.
By carrying out the four steps, ASEAN will be able to strengthen its role globally. In a more complex world, ASEAN should stand in the vanguard in efforts to overcome various challenges, he said adding that ASEAN should not only be a passive onlooker who was vulnerable the negative impacts of problems in other parts of the world.
Marty further stressed that the Bali Declaration on ASEAN community in a global community of nations will come up as the basis for a common platform to increase ASEAN`s contribution to the efforts to address global issues.
(T. E002/HAJM/B003)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
